Armin Mueller-Stahl Movies

The family film Bustin' Bonaparte features youngsters getting revenge on a man attempting to do harm to the woman who cares for them. On a farm managed by a man named Otto, Otto's son Waldo and a pair of orphans attempt to break-up the relationship between Aunt Sannie, who owns the farm, and the conniving Bonaparte Blenkins (Richard E. Grant). In order to facilitate the plan, the kids utilize some the animals who live on the farm. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

This French-German documentary explores the intrigue and culture mix of Tangier in the '40s and '50s when the city attracted the wealthy (Barbara Hutton), eccentrics (Lord David Herbert), Beat Generation poets (Allen Ginsberg), artists (Francis Bacon), writers (Tennessee Williams, Alberto Moravia), and other jetsetters. Interviews with retired restaurateurs, former spies, and writers, such as composer-novelist and long-time resident Paul Bowles, are combined with footage from newsreels. In reenactment scenes, Armin Muller-Stahl portrays a former diplomat making a nostalgic return, while Ulrich Klaus Gunther appears as Beat author William S. Burroughs. English, Spanish, French, and Arabic dialogue. Shown at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

A jury argues a case in a stuffy room on a hot summer's day. Eleven say "guilty!" But one holdout (Jack Lemmon) is convinced of the defendant's innocence and stubbornly argues "reasonable doubt." This tense courtroom drama is a remake of Sidney Lumet's 1957 favorite and was produced for the Showtime cable network. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A U.S. historian gets the chilling opportunity of a lifetime to interview one of Western Civilization's greatest villains whom he finds alive and living under an assumed name in an aging Berlin apartment with a beautiful 40-year-old woman. For a long time, professor Arnold Webster had suspected that Adolf Hitler never died at the end of WW II and is elated (and justifiably suspicious about the possibility of a hoax) when the deposed Fuhrer invites him up for tea and a 10-day-long series of interviews. Though 103 years old and bound to a wheelchair, Hitler's mind is still clear as he recounts his amazing story, one that is punctuated by archival footage. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this resonant drama, decades after the fact, Paul fondly recalls his grandfather's monomaniacal obsession with his craft of "telling" the stories of silent movies with his violin, occasionally supplementing the violin with his storytelling voice. When talkies newly appear on the scene, his grandfather (Armin Mueller-Stahl) heatedly disdains their evident lack of moviemaking craft, discussing these matters with the proprietor of the little Apollo theater, who is nervous about costs and the possibility of going out of business altogether. Meanwhile, social storms of all sorts rage in Germany around them, from hyperinflation to the political ferment which first saw Hitler appointed to government office. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

East Berliner Dieter was working at a very low-level factory job when East and West Germany were unified. He has a very ill child to take care of who requires expensive and special treatments that are not covered by the state medical system. When he loses his job in the inevitable downsizing, he is approached by a sinister rich man to perform various off-the-books services for him, including spying on the rich man's wife. Reluctantly, he accepts the role of "friend" to this untrustworthy fellow. His child is becoming steadily worse, so when the requests of his "friend" include violent and unlawful actions, he does not feel able to refuse him outright. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this German comedy, the Robin-Hood theme receives an entirely new spin. A gourmet tramp, a bankrupt film producer, an aspiring actress and a low-ranking tax inspector join forces to improve their lives and those of others by blackmailing the officers of a large phony charity into donating money to the one they have set up. How these disparate people get together is at least as interesting as the sting operation itself. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Der Spinnennetz was released in English-speaking countries as The Spider's Web. Ulrich Muhe plays a German businessman who was born completely without scruples. This makes him an eminently suitable candidate for success in the chaotic years after World War I. The shameless man's story is contrasted with that of his polar opposite, a Jewish anarchist (Klaus Maria Brandauer). This unusually long film needs every one of its 198 minutes to do full justice to its Byzantine storyline. Director Bernhard Wicki co-adapted the screenplay from a novel by Joseph Roth. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

As the brainchild of writer-director-producer Donald Wrye, the 14 1/2 hour ABC movie event Amerika marked one of the most expensive and controversial miniseries in the history of prime time television when it bowed over the course of seven nights in February of 1987. Regarded as something of a conservative counterpoint to Nicholas Meyer's The Day After (which screened on ABC, four years prior and allegedly demonstrated leftwing bias - prompting very outspoken criticisms from Republican pundit Ben Stein), this $40 million production imagines a dystopian future set in the late 1990s. When the drama opens in May of 1997, the Russians have effectively won the Cold War by wresting control over the United States, with the backing of a U.N. Peacekeeping Force. Although the initial takeover was not annihilative or even apparently violent, the consequences are overwhelming; a puppet leader holds court in the Oval Office, the American economy has fallen to pieces with Midwesterners lining up for vegetables, and gulag prisons are scattered across the land; meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of refugees have hit the countryside and wander aimlessly. The majority of the action unfurls in a rural Nebraska community, where onetime antiwar protester and presidential candidate Devin Milford (Kris Kristofferson) has just been released from a gulag, and now discovers his family farm being whittled away by the Russians. Meanwhile, his childhood friend Peter Bradford has somehow landed a position in the government hierarchy and finds himself being drawn in more deeply. Across the land, Russian stormtroopers engage in acts of violent intimidation, such as burning farmhouses and brainwashing abductees, while the Russian occupiers systematically maneuver on the political front to bring the once-powerful republic tumbling down. The supporting cast includes Christine Lahti, Wendy Hughes, Sam Neill, Armin Mueller-Stahl and many others; the title, of course, was intended to reflect "America" as modified to a slightly more Russian spelling. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Momo (Radost Bokel) is a ten-year-old orphan girl who tries to save her village from the evil clutches of the Grey Men in this uneven children's story. Led by Chief Grey Man (Armin Muller-Stahl), the Grey Men have managed to make the villagers give up all their leisure time. Momo must get to the rococo palace where the time guardian Hora (John Huston) stands in her way. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In this drama, Franza (Elisabeth Trissenaar) leads an unhappy life after she has an affair with a British officer at the end of World War II. She marries an abusive and unfeeling doctor (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and the emotional strain of her marriage leaves her depressed and dispirited. Her brother Martin (Gabriel Barilly) tries to come to her aid and meets her in Cairo where she slowly tells him about her unfortunate past. In the meantime, her trials and tribulations do not appear to be heading toward an easy resolution. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This West German film was first released in 1985 under the title Bittere Ernte. Armin-Mueller Stahl plays a Polish farmer living under the wartime Nazi occupation. Stahl isn't too offended at the prospect of answering to the Germans; in fact, he has profited by confiscating the property of his neighbor, a wealthy Jew. His conscience doesn't disturb him until a starving Jewish woman (Elisabeth Trissenaar) stumbles onto his property. At first Stahl shelters her, but his baser instincts surface; she is in no position to refuse when he ultimately rapes her. She even comes to fall in love with Stahl--and kills herself when another woman moves in with him. Stahl survives the war with health and wealth intact, only mildly disturbed by the misery he has caused. This Oscar-nominated film was to have been lensed in director Agnieszka Holland's native Poland; upon the imposition of martial law, production was switched to Sweden. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide